Intergroup Bias in Political Decision Making

Partisanship is a driving factor of vote choice; however, the mechanism of influence is nuanced. Political parties operate as social identities that motivate elaboration about a candidate and bias image perceptions. In other words, partisanship influences the way in which individuals process information and form political opinions. This influence stems from the processes of ingroup favoritism and outgroup denigration. The present study employs an experimental design and an identity-motivated elaborative theoretical perspective to analyze the elaborative and perceptual process of determining candidate support. Though both congruent and incongruent partisan social identities influence intentions to vote for a candidate, they do so at different strengths and through different information-processing mechanisms. Specifically, ingroup favoritism is primarily automatic, whereas outgroup denigration is both deliberative and automatic.